<i>Milly Ashford</i>
Lelouch stared at the slip and the name written on it, then blinked and it was gone. Like it had never been there at all. But it had been there. A simple ordinary-seeming slip of paper drawn from a simple ordinary-seeming Santa hat. If Lelouch had learned anything at all in the last few months it was that surface appearances were quite often misleading.
“Show off,” Kallen said. “Wish I knew how you did that.”
“So do I,” Lelouch idly said, staring quite intently at the hat and trying to concentrate. Which was rather difficult to accomplish when the person whose name he had drawn was pacing around the room quite impatiently. “Something the matter, Madame President?”
“We’ll open our gifts a week from today,” Milly announced, ignoring the question entirely. “Leave them in Sayoko’s care, with a tag that only has the name of the recipient on it. I’m sure she’ll keep them safe until the time arrives for us to open them. Now. If that’s quite everything, I think it’s time for us to end this meeting and get our gifts in order! Let’s go!”
Without even another word, Milly very nearly ran right out of the room. No innuendo. No prodding fun at anyone’s expense. Not even a check to make sure they had actually done everything they’d had the meeting to do. Surely there was more than this; Lelouch couldn’t have missed quite that much. Surely.
“Was it my imagination, or did she seem a little bit distracted?” Rivalz asked. Everyone else stared at the door and shrugged.
“I’m sure she’s just excited about this game,” Suzaku suggested. “It sounds like a lot of fun.”
“She probably already has something in mind,” Shirley sighed. “If mine is lingerie, I think I could guess who gave it to me.”
Lelouch shuddered a little and hoped that Milly hadn’t drawn his name out of the hat. Then again, she drew <i>someone’s</i> name out of there. Whoever it was, that poor devil was in for a bit of a shock.
“I guess the anticipation is all part of the game as well…” Nina whispered, staring rather intently at the table. “The gift could be from anyone, so you can’t even guess at what you might get…”
“Right! And they can give you anything at all without feeling awkward about it!” Kallen added.
“Not that Milly has an awkward bone in her entire body,” Lelouch said. He shrugged and chuckled to himself. “Well, we can at least rest assured that whoever gets her gift is going to have an interesting experience a week from now.”
The others filtered off, leaving Lelouch alone in the room with the hat. He wasn’t in any particular rush to leave, what with him actually living in this very building. Still. He lifted the hat by the bauble and stared at it very, very hard. What secrets was this apparently magical artefact hiding? Nothing inside it anymore. No paper. Nothing at all. He stuck his hand inside, checked all around. Nothing. Not even a tag.
So off he went back to his room where - inevitably - he discovered a certain green-haired immortal witch inhaling slices of pizza. He dropped the hat in front of her to make certain he had her undivided attention. Or as undivided as it could be when pizza was around. This was the safest way to do it. He might lose a finger if - heaven forbid - he tried to take it from her.
“What do you make of this?” he said. C.C. picked the hat up in much a similar way as he had done. By the bauble on the end with her fingertips.
“It appears to be a Santa hat,” C.C. noted, casually donning it on top of her head. “You have a very strange way of reminding people what time of year it is.”
She had answered a question in a straightforward manner. If the information had been remotely useful, then Lelouch might have considered it a Christmas miracle. Alas, that might be too much to ask even for this time of year…
“Something very strange happened just now involving this hat,” Lelouch plucked it from her head and stared at it once again. “I found it on the street filled with slips of paper which had the names of the student council on them. For some reason, we decided to play a game of Secret Santa, drawing our names out of the hat. Then, the paper vanished as soon as we read the name we drew.”
“Oh, how interesting!” C.C. exclaimed, her interest peaked. “You shouldn’t be drinking alcohol at your age, Lelouch. It’s not healthy for you.”
Infuriating witch! “I am not drunk!”
“No, you’re not,” C.C. agreed. “But the brandy was. Or was it wine? Perhaps cider or something a little fancier?” She sniffed the air. “Hmm… Can’t smell anything…”
“I am perfectly lucid,” Lelouch explained, twitching slightly. “I am not intoxicated, and I am fully aware of what I witnessed. There is something peculiar about this hat -”
“And to what end does it operate?” C.C. interrupted. “Why would a magical item like this hat exist, just to make you all play a silly Christmas game? Hm. Maybe you’re working a little too hard recently? Too little sleep? Come now, Lelouch! There’s nothing strange about this hat. It doesn’t make any sense.”
It was exactly the fact that it didn’t make sense that was worrying him. Milly’s behaviour after they’d all drawn their slip… Perhaps if he tracked her down and asked her about it? Lelouch stroked his chin and concentrated on the task at hand. Something didn’t quite smell right about this situation. He needed more information before he did anything else. If there was something supernatural - or perhaps Geass related - occurring here, then he absolutely needed to find out more before he did anything else!
<hr>
Milly Ashford dashed from shop to shop with a single thought on her mind. Rivalz. She had to get the perfect gift for Rivalz, the council’s secretary. Had to. Like she had to draw her next breath. Somewhere in this mall, waiting for her to notice it, was the perfect gift for her to secretly give that boy with the rather transparent crush on her. A crush that she didn’t reciprocate, but she did find completely adorable. He didn’t have the courage to ask her out, or maybe he realised that she’d probably eat him alive and whole!
Well, it didn’t much matter either way. What did matter was what she picked up for him. She had seen a few interesting things here and there. Event planners, playing cards, a virtual reality headset, some comics… Yet she searched on, desperate to find the perfect something. Desperate to locate and purchase an item that screamed “Rivalz!” right to the very heavens and beyond! But what on Earth could that particular item -
“Milly?”
She turned around at the sound of her name, and beheld none other than Rivalz himself carrying a great big armful of gifts. The poor boy looked like he might topple over at any moment.
“For my family,” he explained, apparently catching her enquiring stare at the already wrapped gifts. “Are you getting shopping done as well? Need any help?”
Milly felt a trembling begin deep within her being. No. He couldn’t help. He wasn’t allowed to help. Come to it, the same would apply if any of them were here. Any member of the council. It would spoil things. Even one person knowing what another was getting defeated the purpose of the game. A gift could come from anyone else in the group. That was the idea. That was the way it <i>worked</i>!
“Actually,” Milly said, putting a confident hand on her hip when, for once, she absolutely did not feel confidence at all. “I’m getting my secret Santa done as quickly as possible. All the rest of my shopping is already finished.”
“Oh,” Rivalz replied, backing away very carefully. “In that case, I’d better leave you to it. Wouldn’t want to spoil it for anyone, would we?”
“No,” Milly said. She didn’t notice how flat her voice sounded. “It must not be spoiled. The integrity of the game must be maintained.”
“I will wait outside,” Rivalz said, his voice similarly flat. “You can arrange for the gift to be delivered to the school.”
Milly shook her head and watched Rivalz walking off in rather a robotic-seeming manner. Poor boy must be having an awful time with all those boxes. Oh well. At least he can get them home easily enough in the sidecar of his -
His bike. Oho! An idea was beginning to form in Milly’s head now. Yes. Yes, of course! She should have seen it earlier! His bike! Surely he could use some sort of accessory for his bike! And there was the perfect store to get something. There! Perfect! Right in the window! A pair of gloves from a rather obscure company called “Groper”. Seemed like an odd name for a company to adopt, but Milly could certainly go along with that….
<hr>
Rivalz didn’t remember leaving the mall, but he shrugged and started to pack his gifts all away in the sidecar of his bike. He really shouldn’t have put this off so late, but then again he did it every year.
His thoughts went back towards Milly, and the more he thought about it the more strange things seemed to him. Why was she so obsessed with getting a gift for her secret Santa right now? Wasn’t it more like Milly just to put it off, pretend like she was doing something else and do it another time? It was hard to imagine her trying not to spend time with someone from the council. Why the obsession? Why wasn’t he heading off? Why was he waiting out here in the cold, when he should be returning home with the gifts? Why should -
His back straightened, and he marched off towards the building. He had forgotten something. A name echoing throughout his mind, the name that he had drawn from the hat. The name of the person he had to purchase a gift for, and do so without putting it off.
<hr>
<b>Gifts Acquired</b>
<i>From Milly to Rivalz</i>: One Pair of Groping Gloves. Affords user a measure of telekinetic powers, limited to their own arm strength. User may experience tactile sensation through telekinesis if desired.
- Rivalz buys Kallen some miracle pills to help with her health.
- Rivalz buys Shirley a swimsuit.
- Rivalz buys Nina a labcoat.
- Rivalz buys Suzaku something he can use to work out.
- Rivalz buys Lelouch a game that he hopes will rekindle his gambling spirit.
- Rivalz buys one of them something else entirely.
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